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In episode two (“I’m a Boss Baby) of T.I. and Tiny: Friends and Family Hustle, singer Monica and her son Rocko met up with T.I. and Tiny and their son King to enjoy some family time and talk about parenting growing boys with hormones — and girlfriends.
While Tiny and T.I.’s son King said he didn’t have a girlfriend (Tiny confirmed he has a “friend” though), Monica’s son, Rocko, 14, had a girlfriend she was actually happy to rave about.
“I like Rock’s girlfriend. A lot,” she said.
T.I replied, “Okay. That’s good. He ain’t gon’ be with her long.”
When asked if it’s because Monica approves of the young girl, T.I. said “You never stay with the ones that your mama likes.” He speaks from experience. It was revealed during the episode that early on in his relationship with Tiny, T.I.’s mom, Violeta, was not really a fan of her. “She like her now.”
He blames it on the fact Ms. Violeta was the main woman in his life back then.
“My mama was always the only woman in my life,” he said in his confessional. “And when there was another woman that came in, they began to lock horns, if you will.”
“Yeah, she just didn’t like me,” Tiny said in her own confessional. She said she actually thought Violeta’s early disapproval of her was because of the fact that she was of a very light complexion. Tiny, is, of course, biracial, the child of a white mother and Black father.
“I honestly felt like, I think I was too white when I came around,” she said. “They were looking like, who is this white girl?! What? Get her out of here. I’m like, I am Black, lady.”
T.I. and Tiny started dating way back in 2001, and she claimed that she was not interested in him despite his early best efforts. At the time, he was only 21 and an up-and-coming rapper while she was 26 and already known in the music industry for her work in Xscape and as a songwriter. The pair met at the mall in Atlanta and she initially stood him up a few times, not taking him seriously. She had a change of heart, though, when she saw how serious other people were starting to take him.
“I felt like ‘Oh, he’s a baby’ and I treated it like that and he kinda felt like, ‘You trying to play me like I’m a little boy,'” she told VIBE in 2011. “And one night, and it’s probably the best thing he could’ve did, he invited me to one of his shows and it was at The Bounce on Bankhead, and I went to the show, and first of all, it was jam-packed outside, it was crazy and I’m like, ‘All these people here for this guy?’ We went in there and he tore the house down. And I was like, ‘OK, I think I like him.’ [Laughs] He’s got something there.”
The pair married in 2010, and they share three children together in King, Major and youngest daughter Heiress. He has three kids from previous/outside relationships in Messiah, Domani and Deyjah, and she has daughter Zonnique from a previous relationship of her own.
